Chapter 43

" Pack. We leave in twenty minutes... whatever will remain unpacked by then stays here. " He said, then proceeded to grab my suitcases and open them up. 

I stood frozen for a couple of seconds, then with numb feet, I went to my drawers and grabbed my clothes....then to the bedside table where I picked up the snow globe. Placing them in the suitcases. 

He was gone. 

                     💮🌼💮🌼💮🌼

I focused more on packing the things I treasured, like my books. The others could easily be replaced but those books would be rare to come by again.

Each time I picked one off the shelf I felt as if I were doing the literature a great injustice,but I carried out the task because my father was there,ready to point out anything wrong that I did.

That silence is something I wished to never experienced again, and from the corner of my eye I could see him studying me. Itching to yell more. Then he walked over to the window and stared out at the darkness.

" Why?" he suddenly asked. 

I stopped packing, my head bowed and my prayer mat in my hand. What did he expect me to tell him? Because the only thing he truly wanted to hear was my apology and my guilty admission. He wanted me to confess that some sort of evil spirit had taken harbour inside me and had led me into acting the way I had. 

But I wasn't going to give him the satisfaction.

" I warned you not to do anything that might tarnish our name yet you go ahead and do just that! And out of everything you could have done..." he shook his head. Unable to go on. Because to him uttering those words would be admitting that they were true. And that was something he was never going to do.

" Are you not ashamed?!" turning around he strode over to where I stood and he looked at me with the rage in perfect place. 

He looked around, at the already packed books and the drawers, at the mat in my hand and then his eyes fell on the bed beside me. And his lips parted, his eyes squeezed shut.

" I'm going to ask you something, and it would be in your very best interest to reply with nothing but honesty. For your sake Jerald... don't you dare lie to me. " I sensed a threat. 

He would know if I lied, it was a skill of his to detect fallacy. And I suspected I knew the nature of his question, but I couldn't be sure until he asked. 

" With his eyes still closed, he turned his face to the side, and I noted he was struggling to ask, but eventually he did.

" Have you engaged in any sort of relations with him?" 

In that moment I wished he had yelled the question at me. Because that controlled calm suggested that he was angrier than he was letting on. I didn't want to reply. 

" Father.."

" Just answer the bloody question! Have you?"

Had I slept with Calen is what he was trying to find out. There was a little fleck of hope when he opened his eyes. A tiny part of him that believed I could still be saved, because if I had actually done what he feared, then I was done for. 

It was a simple three letter word but it refused to be voiced, and instead I nodded and immediately looked away. I heard his defeated sigh. He turned on his heel and faced away from me as if the sight of me was making him sick. And I just stood there and watched, I watched him place both his hands on his waist and bow his head. Then in our native tongue he uttered the words, " You are lost, "

" No one made me do anything, I wasn't led into the darkness either. Everything I did, I did because I wanted to, " 

I don't know where the courage had come from,but he made me regret those words immediately after. Turning back around, he slapped me hard with the back of his hand. I felt a ringing in my ears and the sting from the slap never faded. But I stood still, with my head bowed. He grabbed the mat from me and placed it on the bed. Then he told me to leave it all. Everything in the room including the things I had already packed. My violin and my globe and my books...he said they had all been contaminated with my darkness. That the tendrils of my unforgivable sin had planted themselves in everything in that room.

" It should all be burnt! " were the last words he said before he grabbed my wrists and pulled me along with him. Once we got to the door he stopped, looked me right in the eye and warned me not to say a word of what I had done to anyone back home. That if asked I should tell them the weather had not agreed with me and I had to leave. He didn't care what I said as long as no one got to learn of the truth. 

" If this gets out we are ruined. " 

After making me swear to not say anything, we left. 

I remember trying to get him to let me grab my violin. I pleaded with him. But he turned a completely deaf ear to everything I said. 

But I suppose the thing that hurt the most was passing by him at the exit. 

He had been pacing back and forth, and he stopped once he saw us.

My father pretended he could neither see nor hear him. We went down the small flight of stairs while I struggled to look back. But the sight only filled me with more sadness. I was discovering new levels of that emotion with each day that passed. 

And that day specifically, it had reached it's pinnacle. Especially when I saw him sit on the top stair and ran his hands over his face before fisting them in his hair. 

And I thought that that would be the hardest thing about the day until we got to where the two cars were parked and I found a red-eyed Aliyah seated quietly inside one. I sat beside her in the backseat while my father went into the car in front of ours. 

" Jerald, " she whispered on noticing the mark on my cheek. Such pain in her soft voice it only served to sadden me more. 

" How did he know? " she asked. Fully aware of why she had been pulled out of school that early without an explanation.

" I told him... I was drunk and I just called and I told him, " I hated how weak I sounded. Aliyah moved closer to me and wrapped her arms around me. Then she told me it was okay,but it wasn't. I doubted nothing would have ver be okay again.

And because of me my sister had been denied the chance to follow her dream. My father hadn't even given her a heads-up that he was going to get her, he'd just arrived there and told her to pack. 

" He said you weren't feeling well and we had to leave. Obviously that was a lie since your state of health in no way affects my abilities to learn..I had feared this was why, "

" I'm sorry, "

" Don't be. None of this is your fault Jerald! And it probably won't count for much but I'm proud of you for telling him, "

" I'm not. "

She sighed and hugged me tighter. And I told her to make sure our father never learnt that she had known about me. Because she would also be in as much trouble as I was. 

She let go and I watched her reach into her backpack and pull out something.

" I called Calen when we arrived but he wouldn't pick up. Then he called me afterwards and told me what had occured. " 

I looked at the blazer in her hand.

His blazer. And everything came back in one vicious blow.

" I was just with him,he wanted me to give you this....said to look in the pockets for something. "

I took the blazer from her, and his clean scent was all I could smell. The amount of comfort I got from just that one piece of clothing was immense. I held onto it for the longest while.

" He loves you Jerald, and it's not the baseless teenage love either. He loves you in such a noble way. " She sounded as if she wanted to shed tears herself but she didn't. Instead she leaned against the car seat and looked out the window. I didn't want to look out at Seville, to risk seeing him again. So instead I asked her how Calen had looked. 

" How was he?" I needed to know. Aliyah kept quiet, then finally she spoke and made me wish I hadn't even asked her in the first place.

" Do you recall when we were children and we stumbled across that wounded bird in the back?"

She didn't wait for me to respond. And I hadn't even been planning to.

" That's how he looked Jerald. He looked as if all he wanted was for someone else to end his suffering because he couldn't do it himself. "